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Got rocket science you want to calculate? How cool would it be to run your calcs on a supercomputer?

Amazon takes supercomputing to the cloud

by Dave Rosenberg

You may not need to use the 42nd fastest supercomputer on Earth, but if you want to, you can for just $1,279 per hour.

As reported by Wired, Amazon Web Services latest salvo into the computing on demand landscape is a platform known as the Elastic Cloud Computer, which at $1279 per hour, or $11 million a year if run full time, is probably on par in comparison to the time, effort and expense of procuring the same level of compute power in your own data center.

Amazon's virtual super computer is capable of running 240 trillion calculations per second, or 240 teraflops on 17,000 cores. While undoubtedly impressive, this pales in comparison to Fujitsu's K Computer, which hit 10 petaflops in November 2011, equating to 10 quadrillion calculations a second.

Admittedly there is a big difference, but I'm pretty sure that K Computer wasn't also running much of the tech world's infrastructure, nor was K Computer also selling books and every other retail item on the planet at the same time.

Wi-Fi 'protected set-up' not so protected after all
by Marguerite Reardon

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned this week of a security flaw in a popular tool intended to make it easier to add additional devices to a secure Wi-Fi network.

On Tuesday, the organization, known as US-CERT, cited findings from security researcher Stefan Viehbock, who uncovered the security hole in the so-called Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, or WPS, protocol, which is often bundled into Wi-Fi routers. The WPS protocol is designed to allow unskilled home users to set up secure networks using WPA encryption without much hassle. Users are then able to type in a shortened PIN instead of a long pass-phrase when adding a new device to the secure network.

That method, however, also makes it much easier for hackers to break into a secure Wi-Fi network, US-CERT says. The security threat could affect millions of consumers, since the WPS protocol is enabled on most Wi-Fi routers sold today.

"A few weeks ago I decided to take a look at the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) technology," Viehbock said in a blog post. "I noticed a few really bad design decisions which enable an efficient brute force attack, thus effectively breaking the security of pretty much all WPS-enabled Wi-Fi routers. As all of the more recent router models come with WPS enabled by default, this affects millions of devices worldwide."

The basic problem is that the security of the 8-digit PIN falls dramatically with more attempts to key in the password. When an attempt fails, the hacker can figure out if the first four digits of the code are correct. From there it can then narrow down the possibilities on the remaining digits until the code is cracked. Viehbock said a hacker can get into a secure Wi-Fi hotspot in about two-hours using this method to exploit a vulnerability.

Who owns your Twitter Account?
The answer may surprise you.
The "melding" of your personal and professional life on line may blur the lines when it comes to ownership.

Twitter Account Case May Blaze New Trails In Social Media Law.

(CNN) -- Who, exactly, owns your Twitter account? It's a potentially complicated question when an account is used both professionally and personally. Now a case regarding whether a Twitter account belongs to a company or its former employee has raised questions about the use of the social media phenomenon.

PhoneDog, a website devoted to all things mobile products and services, sued former employee Noah Kravitz for $340,000, according to the complaint filed in US District Court in the Northern District of California.

The lawsuit, which was filed in July, alleges that Kravitz' continued use of a Twitter account he was "given use of" while employed with PhoneDog was a misappropriation of trade secrets and damaged the company's business, goodwill, and reputation.

Kravitz was a product reviewer and video blogger for PhoneDog for about four years, during which time he used the Twitter account @PhoneDog_Noah. The complaint states that Kravitz "used the Account to disseminate information and promote PhoneDog's services on behalf of PhoneDog."

But Kravitz told CNN he opened the account, linked it to his personal e-mail address and maintained it himself while tweeting both personal and professional things throughout his employment with PhoneDog, including links to his own articles and colleagues' articles, as well as tweets about sports, arts, and food.

Windows 8 will provide a refresh option that can automatically restore your PC to a clean state without erasing all your data and customized settings.

Due to appear in the Windows 8 beta that will debut next month, the refresh option makes good on Microsoft's earlier promise that it would give users an easy way to restore Windows in the event of a problem.

As described in yesterday's Building Windows 8 blog by Desmond Lee, a program manager on Microsoft Fundamentals team, the new OS will actually offer two ways to bring Windows back to factory condition:

• The refresh option will keep all personal data, important settings, and Metro style apps, and then reinstall Windows.

• The reset option will securely remove all data, settings, and applications, and then reinstall Windows.

Refreshing Windows would typically be the first option to try if the OS isn't behaving properly. And it's one that Microsoft promises will be completely automated, meaning there's no need to back up your files or settings beforehand.

To accomplish this, your PC boots up into Windows RE (Recovery Environment), saves your data and settings, installs a fresh copy of Windows 8, restores your data and other content, and then restarts into the fresh new OS